Pool, Lawn and Plinth in a Political Pilgrimage

Mark Dendy’s ‘Ritual Cyclical,’ Ensembles Worshiping

Ritual Cyclical, a work by Mark Dendy for 80 dancers, including Jeanne Ruddy, had its premiere on Wednesday at Lincoln Center Out of Doors.Credit
Andrea Mohin/The New York Times

Hundreds of people crammed the northeast corner of Hearst Plaza on Wednesday night to see the world premiere of Mark Dendy’s “Ritual Cyclical” at Lincoln Center Out of Doors. Here was a show, with 80 dancers, specializing in simultaneous multiplicity. At one time there were four, perhaps six, group dances happening. No spectator could have seen everything that was going on.

At times, though, many of us could not even see a single dance action because “Ritual Cyclical” was poorly organized in terms of sightlines. I’m not the shortest person in New York; there were periods when I, hemmed in by crowds, could see no dance movement at all. Yet even when there was plenty to see, “Ritual” felt far from plentiful. Such abundance as it had was solely of staleness and insincerity.

It began with a large ensemble of dancers in white arriving at one corner of the plaza’s reflecting pool like religious pilgrims, anointing their hands and arms with water; one man had a gold wreath in his hair. Later they were joined by others in smart urban attire and bright colors, making the same gestures of invocation.

While this continued, a man and woman — he, bare chested — walked into another part of the pool, gazing into each other’s eyes; and soon he picked her up and lowered her to dip her hair in the water. Meanwhile, three dancers slowly began to ascend the grassy slope. And then at the opposite end of the pool from the worshipers, others began to stretch, bend and touch the ground.

This whole ritual was plainly intended to be — as one of the foolishly aesthetic maidens in the Gilbert and Sullivan opera “Patience” remarks — “perceptively intense and consummately utter.” But it was indicated rather than delivered. Not a jot of it felt sincere. Each part of it looked like a routine.

The routines changed. Some dancers literally hugged trees, in the grove. Then others burst into little social dances, with women partnering men and vice versa. Next, on a plinth outside the Metropolitan Opera House, performers mimed the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima. One group went through a sequence in the alcoves along the opera house’s side wall.

A friend who watched dance in the 1930s once told me how her generation used to describe almost any imitator of Isadora Duncan as “a small Isadora-and-soda.” Large parts of “Ritual” are such tepid imitations of Pina Bausch that we should follow suit and describe them as Pina Colada. Those women and men dressed up in elegant social attire in some sections, that couple dressed down and drenching themselves with water, the sly little social-dance numbers: this was all diluted Bausch, and all felt formulaic.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

I’ve admired Mr. Dendy’s work in the past, not least for ensembles. On this occasion, however, there was no moment when he showed the secret of making foreground play against background, left against right. There were no great dynamic contrasts, no special contrasts in scale.

The musical accompaniment was a Bauschian patchwork, most of it written or arranged by the Kronos Quartet, ranging in sources from Terry Riley to Jimi Hendrix’s treatment of “The Star Spangled Banner,” supplemented by sections by Peter Sculthorpe (from his String Quartet No. 8), Philip Glass (from String Quartet No. 3) and Charles Ives (“They Are There!”).

The final “Ritual” scene took place on a stage in front of the plaza entrance to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. It was fair to hope that this would be the heart of the work, because the seven dancers — six men, one woman — were members of Mr. Dendy’s own company and should know the particular features that bring his style to life. Six men danced in military camouflage costumes. One of them died. A woman straddled this man while going through a sexed-up version of grief. The five male survivors stripped off their camouflage attire, donned spangly white shirts and danced an Elvis routine. Other members of Mr. Dendy’s ensemble shrieked and yelled in applause. The piece ended with another Iwo Jima raising of the flag.

If political points were being made here, they were made ineptly. Does Mr. Dendy want to tell us that inside every soldier there lies a secret Elvis impersonator? Or that fighting for your country is just another kind of showbiz? Strange though those suggestions would be, I could live with them if only they were made interestingly.

This closing scene, however, was the epitome of the campy fakery that characterized all of “Ritual.” Since Mr. Dendy has shown real compositional skill in the past, it was quite strange to see the terrible thinness of his material here.

Lincoln Center Out of Doors continues through Aug. 11; lcoutofdoors.org.

A version of this review appears in print on July 26, 2013, on Page C9 of the New York edition with the headline: Pool, Lawn and Plinth In a Political Pilgrimage. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe